From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cavalier Daily is the fully
independent student-run newspaper at the University of Virginia, founded
in 1890. It is the oldest daily college newspaper in Virginia and
the oldest newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia. Its alumni have
gone on to work at the most prestigious media organizations and win
the most coveted prizes in all of journalism, including the
Pulitzer Prize.

Contents

History

College Topics Masthead Logo, before the newspaper was renamed The
Cavalier Daily.

The Cavalier Daily printed its first issue under the
name College Topics on January 15, 1890. In 1924, the
newspaper increased its publication schedule from twice a week to
six times a week, making the paper a daily. However, the following
year paper's off-campus printer suffered a catastrophic fire, and
the newspaper alternated between two and three publication days a
week until 1940.

During World War
IICollege Topics struggled for survival as the University of Virginia student
population was greatly reduced due to the war effort. By 1943, the
paper had become a four-page weekly that featured only bulletins.
After the war, the paper increased its circulation and content, and
was renamed The Cavalier Daily on May 4, 1948.

The admission of women and African-American students to the University of Virginia beginning
in the early 1970s changed the face of the paper as well as the
university community. The increased diversity of the community
challenged what is often characterized as the preexisting “good old
boy” attitude at both the school and The Cavalier Daily,
resulting in a staff that became more motivated and ambitious. The
first woman member of the Managing Board, Mary Love, was elected
business manager in 1973, and the first woman editor-in-chief, Marjorie Leedy, followed
in 1976. During this time, Managing Board races became highly
competitive, and the paper adopted more professional journalistic
standards. In 1973, a staff split resulted in several unsuccessful
candidates for the Managing Board leaving to form The
Declaration, a weekly tabloid-format publication that
continues to publish as of April, 2009. In 1976, The Cavalier
Daily became the first college publication to receive a Robert F. Kennedy
Journalism Award.

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Media Board
crisis

The University’s Media Board, a body composed of students and
supervised by the University's Board of Visitors, was founded in
1976 to regulate on-Grounds media, but The Cavalier Daily
ignored it as a matter of practice. In April 1979, the
confrontation came to a head when University President Frank
Hereford presented the paper with the ultimatum of accepting
the Media Board and the Board of Visitors’ authority or being
forced to leave its offices. The newspaper refused to acknowledge
administrative supervision, and The Cavalier Daily was
evicted from its offices on April 4, 1979, continuing to publish
from rented space in the offices of Charlottesville’s
Daily Progress.

On April 5, a student protest of the eviction, including a
1,500-student demonstration in front of Hereford’s office on the Lawn and condemnation
from Student Council, encouraged both sides to end the impasse, and
the newspaper agreed to a compromise on April 6. The Cavalier
Daily’s movement toward complete independence emerged from the
Media Board crisis.

Recent history & the CD
today

The fallout of the Media Board crisis led to the 1983 formation
of the Cavalier Daily Alumni Association, with the stated purpose
to support the newspaper and aid it in times of need.

In 1979, the University saw the creation of another student-run
newspaper, the University Journal, which originally formed
in opposition to what many saw as the left-wing editorial stances
of The Cavalier Daily. An intense rivalry between the two
newspapers for news and advertising grew as the University
Journal published three times weekly in the 1980s and then
four times weekly beginning in 1991. Amid significant debt, the
University Journal cut back production starting in 1996
and ceased to exist by 1998. Since that time, The Cavalier
Daily has been the only newspaper at the University of Virginia.

In 1995, The Cavalier Daily Online Edition was launched, and in
1998, The Cavalier Daily began to pay rent for its offices
in Newcomb Hall, the last step in the path toward complete
independence from the University that began in earlier decades. The
Digitization Project, completed in 2001, made all aspects of
production computer-based.

The Cavalier Daily in recent years has won dozens of
Virginia Press Association awards for its news, opinion, feature
and critical content, as well as design, in a competition that
places the paper in competition with professional daily newspapers
across the state.

In 2006 and 2007, the Cavalier Daily comics section came under
fire for controversial cartoons. In August 2006, the comics were
considered insensitive to Christians, involving the Virgin
Mary and Jesus. The
controversy received national attention[1]
and was featured on Bill
O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor. In September
2007, the same cartoonist caused outcry with a comic entitled
"Ethiopian Food Fight," which portrayed malnourished ethnic
Ethiopians fighting each other with various objects including
boots, twigs, pillows and chairs. The meaning of the strip has been
contested, generally stemming from cultural ambiguity over the
meaning of the term "food
fight," which has been used in similar context by news sources
including CNN and the Washington Post,[2]
in addition to some claims that the artist's characterization of
Ethiopians was a subhuman portrayal. The controversy led the
managing board of the paper to fire the artist despite a lack of
clear justification concerning editorial oversight and ultimate
responsibility for publication of the controversial comic;[3]
the artist was also the senior graphics editor at the time, a
position subordinate to all members of the managing board. Four
other comic artists, including another graphics editor, voluntarily
resigned from the paper, prompting an unprecedented mid-year
replacement of comics staff. A complete comics strike was staged
during a week of attempted negotiations, but the managing board
covered up the strike by rerunning strips. The episode earned the
2007 managing board of the paper a Jefferson Muzzle award from the
Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free
Expression.[4]

In 2008, more comics were withdrawn following outcry from campus
and alumni Christians.

Content

The Cavalier Daily prints all-original coverage for its
daily news, sports, opinion, and comics, as well as its weekly
“Focus,” “tableau” (arts and entertainment) and Health
& Science (formerly Health & Sexuality) sections. The paper
also reprints some national articles from newswires such as the Associated
Press. Hoops and Gridiron are tabloid-format
specials released annually before the starts of the basketball and
football seasons, respectively.

Operations and
governance

The Cavalier Daily goes to press five issues per week
in the fall and spring semesters and publishes one mail-home issue
each summer. Daily print distribution is 10,000 copies across the
University Grounds and Charlottesville. The newspaper is printed at
the press of the Culpeper Star-Exponent in Culpeper,
Virginia, and all issues are free.

In an average year, the newspaper’s staff exceeds 200 students,
who are all volunteers. The paper’s editors include five members of
the Managing Board, several copy editors, online managers and
editors, and technology managers, and over two dozen section
editors, all elected by the staff each January.

The Cavalier Daily is fully independent from the
University of Virginia and alumni both editorially and financially.
The five-person Managing Board acts as both the executive editorial
board of the newspaper and as the corporate board of directors of
The Cavalier Daily, Inc., which operates entirely on advertising
revenue. The Cavalier Daily charges different rates for
local and national advertisers.